The Duplex (2015) 2h 38m

I'm going to be completely honest here.  If someone offered me a house for a super cheap price and I then found out it was haunted then I'd be okay with that.  I feel like after the 10th time of the ghost showing up to try and scare me and it would be one of those "OOOOOOO! Oh goddamnit! You're masturbating again!" moments then he'd just fuck right off.  Bustin' makes me feel good...

The Duplex is our first Nigerian horror film here on 30 Days of Plight.  A couple buys a home for an insanely cheap price only to have the pregnant wife repeatedly seeing some sort of specter move about their house.  Eventually the spirit causes the woman to miscarriage and it leaves with the baby.  This becomes the turning point for the man to see the ghost instead and then finally attempt to deal with the issue.  It's kind of dickish.

This film is rough around the edges.  The elements are all there but the script is just too long, the effects are behind (in comparison to U.S. films), and the plot needed some tightening up.  I did enjoy that the film brought in the idea of the entity being some form of "spiritual warfare" being waged by someone in the village.  We tend to assume that how people practice their faith is similar to what we know but there are variations everywhere because of exceptions that had to be made to integrate a new religion... other than swords, guns, and colonization.

If I had to sum up The Duplex then I'd say it was a roller coaster, but a shitty roller coaster.  I was all on board for it at the beginning but after two hours of the slow incline I began to wonder where the hell this was going and then suddenly it was over and I was told to exit the ride.  Then I get off the ride to find out someone stole my Motley Crue "mirror" I won in at the dart throwing game because people are scum!  That never happened but I'd cut a fucker for stealing my Motley Crue mirror if I had one.

 I give The Duplex 1.5 Bible Adventure cartridges out of 5:

13 Days of Christmas Day 12: Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (2010) 1h 24m

I don't really dig the Coca-Cola created Santa Claus.  I also don't really dig Christmas, so maybe it all gets lumped in together.  I do dig the concept of an evil Santa (and I'm not talking about another fucking Krampus movie!!).  I also listen to a lot of metal, including a decent cropping of black metal.  So how do all of these things come together?  Well, that's where Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale comes in.
 
Set in Finland (and mostly in Finnish), an eccentric old man has an excavation team digging up something frozen deep inside a mountain.  When the local reindeer farmers lose their herd to an unknown creature, and a naked old man ends up in one of their wolf traps, they scramble to make sense of what's going on while only a single child has everything figured out.

Rare Exports is metal as fuck!  Being set in Finland and in Finnish helps but there are some awesome illustrations of Santa sitting on thrones of skulls and punishing children.  The only actual visuals of Santa we get is him encased in ice but it looks like it should be the cover of a Iced Earth or maybe Amon Amarth album.  Also, an army of naked old men carrying pick axes in the middle of Finland's winter is kind of a frightening thought.

There is really only one reservation I have with this movie.  It felt a little slow but not enough that it drags you.  After a half-hour I thought I was much further into the film than I was, but that was the only point when I checked the clock.  Actually, the other reservation I have is that the kid runs outside in a sweater, some fucking Ugg looking boots, and just briefs on.  You might be used to the cold but no one is that used to it, especially a male.  Trust me, the cold does things... horrible things.

I give Rare Exports 4 ripped Santas out of 5:

Guest on Rank & Vile podcast Ep: 42 Ol' Petey Ten Dicks

Hey everyone, I'm a guest on this week's Rank & Vile Podcast. We discuss the foreign horror films The Untamed, Honeymoon, and Train to Busan. You can find that on iTunes as well as on Podbean at https://rankandvile.podbean.com/